Improved compostion for filling the pores of wood



NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

IMPROVED COMPOSTION FOR FILLING THE PORES OF WOOD.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent N o. 54,] 94, dated April 24, 1866.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY S. MYERS, cabinet-maker, of the borough of Mount Joy, in the county of Lancaster, in the State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Oomposition for Filling the Pores and Raising the Grain on all Kinds of Wood Preparatory to Polishing or Varnishing the same, of which the following is a specification.

After numerous trials during a period of six years experimenting I have succeeded in ascertaining the exact proportions in order to form an elastic sizing that dries speedily, sets hard and smooth, closing the pores of the wood effectually, brings up all the grain or roughness, easily pumicated, and freely receives French or other polish, shellac, copal varnish, or any kind of oil paint, and that can also be applied to painted surfaces, as well as being capable to be colored as a stain and sizing combined by means of. the ordinary materials used. After various tests with this composition its value and importance to the trade is now thoroughly established.

In order to enable others to make and use my compound, I will now proceed to describe the several ingredients, which are so common and well known as to require no specimens.

Take one ounce of prepared chalk, (creta prccpamtm) one and a half ounce dry white lead, (carbonate of lead,) half an ounce of Spanish white, or chalky white earth, and one and a half ounce ground and calcined plasterof-paris. Mix the aboveingredientsintimately all in fine powder. Then one pound of good common glue, previously soaked in cold water over night, to soften, and boiled or thoroughly dissolved in two quarts of water over the fire, as when making glue. The above ingredients are added and well stirred into the glue until, as it does, form a uniform mixture, which completes the composition for sizing, and is ready for application. The wood being first oiled with linseed-oil, to bring out the color, as usually, and wiped so as to remove any excess of oil not absorbed by the wood, the sizing is applied with a brush or otherwise to the surface of the wood to be polished and varnished. In ten minutes time the composition is set, the

pores filled, and the grain raised. Fine sand or emery paper readily polishes the wood, and

no further grain can be raised by alcohol or other liquid. When smoothed or rubbed down with the sand-paper, a second coating of the size can be applied, (always warm and liquid when used.) Ten minutes thereafter it is ready for polishing with oil and pumice-stone, and a high polish produced in half the time as when any other kind of sizing or preparation I had previously used or known of was employed. It is now ready for theFrench polish, shellac, or copal varnish, and one coat of either will now give as high afinish as that ordinarily produced by four coats, and is hence not inclined to crack even when the wood is bruised by a round, blunt instrument, and is found to be more durable and satisfactory than when coat of varnish is spread upon coat and polished again and again, as any one can prove by testing the utility of this compound sizing, which forms a peculiar compact base.

Theingredients are cheap, one gallon costing but fifty cents, and will save four coats of varnish, costing five dollars per gallon, and the results will be found equal, if not superior, at a great saving of time, labor, and expense, and cannot fail to commend itself to all who are in this line of business for its superiority and cheapness.

The same ingredients with half the water to the glue (one quart only) will produce a strong, elastic cement, found of great utility in joining belting (either of leather or gumelastic) used in machinery, as proved to be the case on actual trial. When cold the outer surface coming in contact with the air hardens, while the interior remains as pliable as caoutchouc or india-rubber. Otherwise the mass is of a uniform consistency.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

The compound formed by the ingredients, in the manner, and for the purpose specified.

HENRY S. MYERS,

Witnesses J AGOB SoUDER, FERDINAND M. SOURBEER. 

